Amazon PPC Services: How to Choose an Agency (Red Flags to Check)

Most Amazon PPC agencies hide the mess. They show you a logo wall and promise lower ACoS. Then you're three months in, bleeding budget, and the account manager who sold you can't explain why your TACoS went up.

I've run over 500 campaigns across six brands. I've seen what works and what burns money. Here's what to check before you sign.

Who actually manages your account

The person who closes the deal isn't the person who runs the campaigns. Ask for the account manager's name before you sign. Then ask how many accounts they carry.

The more accounts one manager carries, the more your account gets batched with everyone else's.

Ask their Amazon PPC experience. Anyone new to it is learning on your budget.

Most agencies put a senior closer on the call, then hand you to a junior account manager. Make them name the person who does the day-to-day work. If they won't, walk.

Account ownership and access

You own the Seller Central account. The agency gets invited access. Never hand over Owner status.

Amazon Seller accounts aren't transferable. If the agency wants Owner access or wants to run campaigns under their own platform, they're trying to lock you in.

You should be able to log into Seller Central any time and see every campaign, every keyword, every search term report. If they push back on that, they're hiding something.

Contract length and exit terms

A confident agency offers a short initial term. They'll renew if the numbers work.

A 12-month lock-in with no performance exit clause means they don't trust their own results. You take all the downside. They get paid either way.

Ask what happens when you leave. Do you keep the campaign structure? Can you export the historical data? Who owns the negative keyword list you built together?

A real answer specifies contract length, notice period, and exactly what happens to account access and campaign history when you're done.

Fee structure and incentive alignment

Percentage-of-ad-spend fees reward higher spend. As an example, at a 15% fee, if they recommend increasing your budget to $30,000/mo, their fee jumps to $4,500/mo. They're incentivized to increase spend, not improve efficiency.

Flat fees align better. Or flat plus a share of ad sales. The agency earns more when your sales go up, not when your ad spend goes up.

Ask what the fee covers. Some agencies advertise a low monthly fee then charge separately for A+ content, DSP campaigns, reporting dashboards, and brand protection. The real bill is higher.

Read the full breakdown in our Amazon PPC agency pricing guide.

Proof of results in your category

A home page filled with well-known logos means nothing. Those brands probably have in-house teams and the agency is running one small test.

Ask for named clients in your niche with specific numbers. Same category. Similar ad spend range. Real ACoS improvement with the timeline.

If they say "all our case studies are under NDA", they don't have case studies. A real client reference will talk to you on the phone.

On a featured account, January to August 2024, I drove $234,583 in ad sales on $55,746 in spend: 23.76% ACoS and 4.21 ROAS. That's the kind of specificity you're looking for.

Reporting frequency and what gets measured

Weekly reports should show: spend, sales, ACoS, TACoS, top-performing keywords, wasted spend, and what changed since last week.

TACoS matters more than ACoS. Total Advertising Cost of Sale includes organic sales. If your TACoS is climbing, the ads aren't growing the business — they're propping it up.

Learn more about what makes a good ACoS and how to lower ACoS systematically.

Ask to see a sample report before you sign. If it's just a dashboard screenshot with no commentary, that's not a report. That's a data dump.

You want a log of every campaign change. Every bid adjustment, every negative keyword, every budget shift. "Proprietary process" is not an answer.

What they automate and what they touch manually

Automation is fine for bid adjustments and budget pacing. It's not fine for search term reviews and negative keyword strategy.

Ask what they hand to software and what they do manually. If the answer is "our AI handles everything", they're not managing your account. The software is.

I run dynamic bids set to down-only. I review search terms weekly. I require a 10-click minimum before I kill a keyword. That's a repeatable process, not a black box.

For more on building solid Amazon PPC campaign structure, read our full guide.

Timeline expectations and promises

Real improvements take time. The first few weeks are auditing, restructuring, and testing.

If they promise a dramatic ACoS drop in the first month, they're lying. The account needs time to learn. Campaigns need data. You need to see performance across different seasonal patterns.

Guarantees of specific ACoS, ROAS, or revenue are a red flag. No one can guarantee Amazon results. The platform changes too fast.

Questions to ask on the call

Here's the exact list:

1. Who manages my account day-to-day? Can I meet them before signing?
2. How many accounts does that person carry?
3. How many years have they been running Amazon PPC?
4. What's the contract length and notice period?
5. What happens to my account access and campaign structure when I leave?
6. What does the base fee cover? What costs extra?
7. Can you share a case study in my category with real numbers?
8. How do you review search terms? How often? What's the process?
9. What do you automate and what do you manage manually?
10. How long until I should expect to see results?

If they dodge any of these, end the call.

When you don't need an agency

If you're spending very little on ads, software is cheaper than an agency.

If your listings aren't optimized yet — weak images, generic bullets, no A+ content — fix that first. Ads can't save a listing that doesn't convert.

If you're just launching and have no sales history, run your own campaigns first. You'll learn faster and save the agency fees.

When you do need an agency

When ad spend is meaningful and the account is getting complex. Multiple products, multiple campaigns, keyword cannibalization, wasted spend you can't trace.

When your time is worth more than the agency fee. If you're spending hours every week in Seller Central, that's founder time with a real opportunity cost.

When you've hit a plateau. You've optimized what you know how to optimize and the account isn't growing anymore.

For Australian sellers specifically, read our guide on Amazon PPC services in Australia.

Red flags that mean walk away

• They want Owner access to your Seller Central account
• 12-month contract with no performance exit
• Percentage-of-spend fee with no flat component
• No named case studies in your category
• "Our AI handles everything"
• Guarantees of specific results
• The salesperson who closed you disappears after signing
• Reporting is just dashboard screenshots with no commentary
• They won't give you a name for the account manager before you sign

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That's literally what the free audit is — wasted spend, ACoS, bid structure, back to you as a short video with the 3 highest-leverage fixes.